I used to dress fancy and expensively. All it did was attract the wrong women. As it turns out, you cannot pick up a woman in a Lamborghini and drive her to McDonald’s. (I didn’t do that but that’s a tidy summarization.)

Wealth signaling leads to spoiled expectations. I read that in China, men are forced to buy third and fourth homes to signal wealth because the one child policy and the desire for male children has led to intense overcompetition. So, the ghost cities in China are partly attributable to bad monetary policy, and partly attributable to the collective inability of men to tell women that their HGTV obsessions are moronic.

Were these women physically attractive? Were the men physically attractive and seen as good sources of DNA?

I suppose it depends on your perspective. Yeah, I’d say those women were maybe 7-8 or so in appearance. My stepbrother was exceptionally good Looking back in the day, and a nice guy.... but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. His Navy wife has three or 4 PhDs in math and related fields, so I can only assume he also has a large penis and lots of energy. (interestingly, their kids turned out neither attractive nor smart and one apparently is pretty heavily into drugs and had a baby young....). The guy married to the surgeon is short and hairy—not my type at all—but it works. Their kids turned out well.

My lawyer friend is average smart and was average attractive back in the day. Her husband was unattractive (it would be rude to call him fugly...)then and pretty much unemployed and unemployable. Not someone I’d want to join genetic material with. He was/is however a great dad, and their kids turned out great (not pretty, though....). All three kids got academic scholarships to different engineering schools and one graduated with a dual degree in 3 years.

You never can predict, I think, how things will work out, despite the best planning.

Some combination thereof. I am not in the least threatened by a capable woman, a successful woman, or a physically robust woman. Hence the fascination Jason and I share for Serena Williams. In fact, because I am so cerebral, I want a physically robust woman so that our children could possess good all-around attributes. I am 5’10”. When I go on a date with a woman who is 6’0” or 6’1”, I am given to heart palpitations.

This strategy was aimed at getting the advantages of r and K strategies. Being the best K (women are traped in K strategies) choice to get the r. The future is gloomy. How can you hope all your kid to survive? What a grand and intoxicating innocence.
I really need to get myself a forest, no recall or intervention can work in this place, there is no escape.

The future is not that gloomy(*). Whatever number of children you have will survive although they might not live as long or well as you[r generation] will. As soon as an economy transitions from agrarian to industry, the ROI of additional children goes down---way down. I think today it's fair to say that it's negative based on the observation that the government subsidizes them (child credit, free daycare, etc.). In the developed world, the transition has already moved from industry to tech. Here the ROI is even worse and in some cases it might not even be "worth it"(**) to have one child. It will take a very large sum of money to make someone a productive member of society in 2040. Much larger than it did in 1940 (industry) or 1840 (farming). Not to put to fine a point on it, but raising 1 engineer costs the same as raising 5 amazon order pickers, but the income of the former is much higher than the sum of the latters'. We're clearly in a K-selection optimum here.

(*) Meaning in your lifetime, you'll probably see GDP/capita holding steady or declining slightly which is not bad since it's already high. If you're reading this from China or India, the best strategy would be to have 0-1 children and pour enough resources into them so they come up on top. These countries are still rapidly growing and will see increasing GDP/capita. However, if the pie is not growing or growing very slowly, it doesn't seem wise to contribute a handful of children to the next generation's underclass?! Only areas where it still makes sense to have many children---again strictly economically speaking---are countries that are stuck at the agrarian level.

(**) Talking strictly economics here and in terms of whether it will increase standard of living for you and your children. So ignoring those who are rich enough to afford many without suffering financially. Insofar you or your children end up with [debilitating] debt, that was not the case. E.g. millennials who are permanently sunk with student loans they can never pay back courtesy of parents who could not afford to bring them up to the same level of wealth that they themselves enjoy[ed].

Point being ... selecting based on "survival" is premature; reserve that discussion for the 22nd century. What we should be concerned about is what quality of life the next generation will have. In the US we already see example of longevity falling and young generations not being as well off as their parents. That is a complete reversal of the trend over the past couple of centuries.

No living is always lower than living, in term of standard of living.
You seem very optimistic. But even if you're right, r strategies are good for unpredictable cause of death, which is what the (far) future looks like. Having many child is a way of having them choose diversified niches in the future. One generation ain't enough to diversify.

Our [first world] leading causes of death are heart disease and cancer by far (totally outclasses anything else---if you can avoid those two, you will live a long life ... and then probably die of them in your late 80s or 90s) followed by things like accidents(*), strokes, Alzheimers, and tobacco (COPD). If antibiotics wear out, infectious diseases are going to go way up, but keep in mind that sanitation standards are way higher than they used to be. Another factor is drug abuse which becomes a factor if living begins to suck too much. In the US we have a growing opioid crises where people overdose on their painkillers. In Russia people drink themselves to death so effectively that their population was speedily declining in the 1990s. I think that will become more prevalent once growth stagnates and fades. Once people give up hope then drink or drugs begin to look pretty good.

(*) This is pretty much the only thing that can really kill a person under 40 these days.

I don't really follow the diversification gambit. Also what do you mean by one generation is not enough to diversify? What are you diversifying?

If we look at one generation at a time then when it comes to risk-adjusted ROI, one computer engineer > one amazon order picker + one busboy + one Uber driver + one paralegal + one hairdresser. Sure, the latter will always have some income combined, but the CE income will be higher than the rest of them combined and the CE will likely not be struggling for employment, spending 20+ years paying off loans, or working clopenings in two part-time jobs. Check out some of the higher spending journals here and see how much $$$$ they're pouring into their few children to give them an advantage over the other kids. That's K-selection and that's what the r-selection strategy is up against. That CE will in turn have another CE Jr. ... and so on. This is essentially how social mobility dies and the [socioeconomic] class system propagates. This effect is getting stronger in the US. The American Dream is dying here. If Americans want their children to live the American Dream, they need to go to Denmark .

PS: I'm certainly biased in terms of quality over quantity when it comes to life/living. Maybe I'm just talking my book.

I think what Jean means is that if he cannot expect that only one or maybe two children will lead to fathering a statistical outlier, he should have 8 children, in the hopes that one of them will be an outlier, and failing that, if each of the 8 of them are not outliers but themselves each have 8 children, maybe one of the 64 grandchildren will be an outlier, etc.

That has been the historical strategy....and perhaps because we live in a society where few people die young and growth stagnates.....we have less opportunities for outliers. A conundrum that most people who don’t have that existential yearning will understand.

I haven't read this whole thread to date, but I thought this book might be relevant to what looks like a discussion about population in general. Note, I have not read it yet but am interested in doing so as soon as I can get my library to buy it.

I am too much the same character as Jean to join in his endeavor. That’s why I like his plan. Only difference is garden project vs baby project and young careerist women vs old careerist men. However, I would be happy to serve as Visiting Foster Grandmother Permaculturist Consultant to his project.

@MI:

Gotcha. INFs often get stuck shooting for muse rather than human.

@jacob:

Eh, sounds like wishful G2 thinking to me. Some of the poor little immigrant kids with many siblings I teach are going to kick their affluent asses , especially in realms such as CE.

Some combination thereof. I am not in the least threatened by a capable woman, a successful woman, or a physically robust woman. Hence the fascination Jason and I share for Serena Williams. In fact, because I am so cerebral, I want a physically robust woman so that our children could possess good all-around attributes. I am 5’10”. When I go on a date with a woman who is 6’0” or 6’1”, I am given to heart palpitations.

I call that my goddess complex. But I've never met one who wanted me so I don't know how it would work.

I recently started dating again after a 3 year voluntary celibacy, in order to get out more and try to see what my life in retirement would look like.
Out of all the beautiful, college educated women I´ve been sports- fucking I only meet one , that I could see myself building a life with.

Oxford educated, old money, 31 year old italian neurosurgeon, that looks like an Angel .
As faith had it, it turned out she was unknowingly 7 weeks pregnant with her ex-BF, while dating me. Now trying to work thigs out with her ex, some Hugh Grant looking English dude.

Well, back to dating big-breasted Brazilians and olympic rowers , with musles like steel.